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Comment by fchollet | Hacker News Reader

> I started calling online advertising a bubble in 2008.

Then maybe it's time to quit punditry; that was 8 years ago and the online advertising market has grown 2.5x since.

> I made “The Advertising Bubble” a chapter in The Intention Economy in 2012.

The online advertising market has grown 30% since.

Since no market can grow forever, at some point there will be a dip in the industry. Maybe in less than five years, maybe in ten years. And when it finally happens, this kind of pundit will be telling us "they had called it correctly, before anyone else".

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Exactly. It's hard to call something a bubble when it actually displays all the characteristics of a maturing market.

Additionally, the non-online advertising market is huge. TV advertising in the US alone is almost 25% bigger than the online market[1]. People don't talk about that 40-year old "bubble" bursting, even though it seems inevitable that money will move to online.

Do people really expect there to be less money spent in advertising?

[1] http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pw...

>Then maybe it's time to quit punditry; that was 8 years ago and the online advertising market has grown 2.5x since.

Isn't the very nature of bubbles to get inflated? 2.5x or more?

The main difference compared to a solid venture is not that they see growth (that's what they do best!), or for how many years they see growth, but that it's an inflated (hence "bubble") growth that can (and eventually will) disappear overnight.

A non-bubble industry will also see growth, and will also see decline. But it will not see a huge sudden drop from hero to zero, unless something extraordinary happens (e.g. a war, alien invasion, etc).

Stable year-on-year growth for 15 years is not the sign of a bubble, it's just what you see with a growing industry.

The bubble in computer sales never burst - it just leveled off some and some sales moved to phones and tablets, which grew at an even faster rate[1]

The are plenty of similar examples.

[1] http://static1.squarespace.com/static/50363cf324ac8e905e7df8...

Sure, but computer sales were not a bubble to begin with.

What's the difference - isn't it that same thing? New technology opens up a new market, in which we see fast growth which then levels off?

Advertising sales have been growing for ~100 years, through newspapers, radio, TV and now online. AS new technology grows some of the spending migrates, and the overall market expands.

What is the argument that this is a bubble?

You mean, computer sales were not bubble, so they didn't burst, but online marketing, which exhibits similar characteristics, will burst, because it's bubble? And this proves the online marketing is a bubble? I don't get this reasoning.

Pundits need to put a firm date on their prediction.

5 years should be enough, if it takes 10 years that shows you must be wrong.

firms dates and accountability. At least Nate Silver fessed up to being wrong about Trump.

agree. At some point you have to throw in the towel and admit being wrong

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